Ouyang Xiu – Spring at the Jade Tower

We thought we were done with the Song, but we just cannot get enough of it. Now, we are going back to Ouyang Xiu with a poem that features in a translation of a late Qing thinker that Rob is working on. The poem is by Ouyang Xiu, and Rob and Lee disagree about how to read it…no surprises there. 

Lee’s Translation:
The Farewell feast is like knowing firmly when you will return. 
The wordless woman with the face as beautiful as the spring wind first sighs with misery
In life, it is natural to have situations where one finds someone who makes you lovesick
This regret has nothing to do with either the wind nor the moon
During the farewell song, do not sing a new poem, 
this one song is already enough to tie one’s bowels up in knots
If we were to together see everyone of the many of the Peonies of Luoyang [in other words, spend half a lifetime],
Only then would it start to make this parting easy, like the spring breeze.

Rob’s Translation:
We are drinking together, and deciding on when she will return. But before we do, her face, beautiful as the spring, is marred with a sad groan.
Human life by nature contains such moments of desperate sadness, and this pain has nothing to do with the wind or the moon.    
After finishing a parting song, don’t repeat even a stanza, for one is enough to knot the guts.
A lifetime together gazing at the flowers of Luoyang would be just enough to ease the pain at her parting.

Original:
尊前1拟把归期说，未语春容2先惨咽。
人生自是有情痴，此恨不关风与月。 
离歌3且莫翻新阕5，一曲能教肠寸结。
直须看尽洛城花4，始共春风容易别。